Fraunhofer Institute for Material Flow and Logistics IML
Software components published open source
The project AutoModal - Automation of trimodal terminals investigated the end-to-end automation of the transhipment terminal is a joint project with Contargo GmbH & Co. KG, Duisburg and synyx GmbH & Co. KG, Karlsruhe. An essential component was the automation of a gantry crane, which was converted for this purpose so that independent automated processes could be carried out. The focus of the work was the conversion and prototypical operation of the crane automation in a reference terminal. For this purpose, the gantry crane was equipped with additional sensors to ensure safe and reliable detection of persons in the crane environment and to enable automated operation. Suitable solutions were evaluated from a wide selection of sensors and tested on a test model. In parallel, suitable control software was developed, interfaces harmonised and hardware components integrated for operation.
Subsequently, the necessary components on the gantry crane, including the monitoring environment, were installed on an existing crane. The retrofit was possible, but the implementation effort was greater than for a new design of a crane. The automated operation was prototypically tested in various application scenarios. The accompanying evaluation showed comparable performance in handling load units in the container warehouse as well as high system reliability. The technical implementation was complemented by a roadmap for the continuous automation of a transhipment terminal.
The software modules developed in the AutoModal project were published in open source. This comprises a total of four components:
Sensor and Neural Data Platform (SAND)
The tool provided can simplify camera streams (or video streams in general) by providing an extensible framework for reading, manipulating and republishing images.
It was developed to manage an object recognition system that we set up on a trimodal crane. The focus was on human (and biomass in general) recognition to enable processes at container ports.
In the AutoModal project, the environment detection software was developed to monitor the environment around the crane and detect people as well as vehicles. This forms the basis for the automatic operation of the crane for handling containers in the trimodal terminal.
The release in the GitLab runs under the acronym SAND - Sensor and Neural Data Platform.
Thing Action Management System (TAMS)
https://github.com/Contargo/automodal-tams
TAMS is a manufacturer-independent control system for crane systems. It enables the creation and monitoring of orders for cranes. For this purpose, pick-up orders (Pick) as well as drop orders (Drop) can be generated for specific positions in a virtual image of a stack. This can also be operated in different modes to configure or initialise a position. The image is visualised and simulates a virtual crane environment.
CCS (Crane Control System) sample implementation
https://github.com/Contargo/automodal-ccs-adapter
The CCS is an adapter to connect the TAMS to the crane control system (PLC). This implementation is currently configured in GIT for our reference gantry crane. However, it is possible to adapt it to any other crane control system.
Thing Action Management Interface (TAMI)
https://github.com/Contargo/automodal-tami
The TAMI is a definition of the interface used to transmit travel orders to the crane system. A generalised interface description was created for this purpose. The job descriptions mentioned above can also be found in this interface.
